Absolutely storytelling is a tool.  It can be used to help people see insights they might otherwise filter out due to their previous biases or experiences.

Every day we build a construct of the world based upon what we experience.  The problem is, these constructs or filters are not always true and can sometimes be self-limiting.

However a good story can help us to see through our constructs.

Here’s an example:  When I was about 21 or 22, I had an awful sales job that was emotionally terrifying for me.  I experienced more rejection than I had ever been exposed to

I swore I would never take a sales job again. 

However later in life, I heard a story of someone who became a successful financial planner, how he did it, how he had to work hard to achieve success, how he had to make hundreds of cold calls every week.

That story inspired me to pursue a career as a financial planner, even though it involved sales.  And that story fueled my belief in myself and my inevitable success.

That is how stories can be great tools.

A complete story is an argument for dealing with a problem (Dramatica definition).

It’s also true that every business is also an argument for dealing with a problem. “Good Food costs less at Sainsbury’s”, “Avis tries harder” “There’s a difference at McDonalds” etc etc etc.

When properly constructed and told a complete story makes an engaging case for a business. It’s advertising which works.

Stories can change minds because they interact with all of our brains. They appeal ambidextrously to the logical neo cortex, emotionally to the limbic system and even bureaucratically to the r-complex perched on top of the spinal column. That’s the complete story of Dramatica Theory.

Story is as old as language and the way humans found to inform, educate and entertain whiling away the dark watches around our early fires.  The good ones persist.

Story allows the listener to rehearse responses to the unfamiliar, empathise with strangers and widen their experience of their unknown.  And we are as vulnerable to it today as ever we were.